How do I map network drive when connected to VPN at home?

Hi,

I'm currently at work and would like to map a network folder (music) located on my Synology NAS back home.

I'm connected to my home network via a VPN server in my Asus router. The NAS is located at IP 192.168.1.111

I am not able to connect to the NAS and this network folder when connected to my network via VPN, only when I am actually at home following this tutorial:

DiskStation Manager - Knowledge Base | Synology Inc.

I suspect I have to open some ports on my router to allow this? Is this correct?

What must I do to connect to this music folder on my NAS back home?

Compumind said:

Hi Hoggorm -



Just to clarify - are you trying to access the NAS via your company's VPN?

I need more information...

No. I am connected to internet at work using my private laptop. I am then again connected to my own VPN server at home so that I for example can access my Asus router on the IP 192.168.1.1

I can however not connect to my NAS located at 192.168.1.111. This I can do from my computer at home. To access it from work I have to connect to myowndomain.com website.

The Synology NAS also has the possibility to host a VPN server. When connecting to it, instead of the Asus router VPN server, I am able to map a network folder (or drive) using the above-mentioned tutorial from Synology. This leads me to suspect that there is some firewall rule that should be applied to allow traffic from the Asus router to the NAS.

Although a quick fix could be to just use the Synology VPN server instead, it is not ideal as it puts unnecessary load on the NAS among other things. Therefore, I'd like to use the Asus router VPN server instead.

What happens when you try errors? Are you trying to connect via ip or name the problem will be its on another subnet so your pc wont know how to reach it

Samuria said:

What happens when you try errors? Are you trying to connect via ip or name the problem will be its on another subnet so your pc wont know how to reach it

I must admit I do not fully understand what you ask here...

My objective is to gain access to my music folder at the NAS and I would like to have this folder mapped as station M: when opening "This PC" There are three ways I've tried to accomplish this:

1 - The procedure I follow is to connect to internet at work. Then connect to my VPN server so that when checking https://www.whatismyip.com/ and looking at "Your Public IPv4 is" I can see the IP at my home.

After that I open a Windows Explorer window and go to Computer before clicking Map Network Drive and continue with the tutorial located here: DiskStation Manager - Knowledge Base | Synology Inc.

The error message that appears is in Norwegian, but say something like "Cannot access \\192.168.1.111\music the network path was not found".

2 - If I do the same but connect to the Synology VPN server instead of the Asus router VPN Server the message I see instead of the error message is a window where I'm asked to enter login details for a user account on the NAS. Entering the credentials gives access to the music folder on my NAS from This PC and it is assigned station M:

3 - If I do the same at home, I follow the same steps (except I now connect to my home network and do not connect to the VPN server obviously). Instead of the error message is a window where I'm asked to enter login details for a user account on the NAS. Entering the credentials gives access to the music folder on my NAS from This PC and it is assigned station M:

If I disregard that it works fine when actually at home the procedure is the same between 1 and 2, except that I connect to a different VPN server (although both are physically located at my home).

Using method 1 the routing (using my limited knowledge about this sort of thing):

Work internet - Home modem - Home router - STOP

Using method 2 the routing appears to be:

Work internet - Home modem - Home router - Synology NAS - Access

Compumind said:

Some things...

What happens when you try to connect?
What happens when you try to connect without the VPN?
Are you using the default port settings within the ASUS router?
Have you tried issuing a Telnet command into the NAS by IP without the VPN?

I would like to see you connect to the Synology NAS without the VPN - just to test.
Check the port settings there as well.

What happens when you try to connect?

I hope my explanation above of the three methods I use answer this question?

What happens when you try to connect without the VPN?

If you mean when I'm at home please see my steps followed in method 3 above. Then I am successful. If you mean when I'm at work, well, I do not know how I could do that or if it's even possible? Obviously the NAS IP would no longer point to my NAS back home but one or another computer on the work network?

Are you using the default port settings within the ASUS router?

No. I have configured some ports that have to be open for certain Synology NAS programs to work properly, such as Help, DSM, and Cloud. In addition, when I am running the Synology VPN server the relevant ports have to be opened and directed to the NAS. When doing so I cannot connect to the Asus router VPN server (as all traffic coming through those ports are directed to the NAS I assume). The same works in the opposite direction - if I delete the VPN port forwarding rules all VPN traffic goes to the Asus router VPN server. I cannot log into both at the same time, it has to be either one.

Have you tried issuing a Telnet command into the NAS by IP without the VPN?

No. I do not know what this is?

Hi there @Hoggorm

You first need to ensure that relevant ports are open on your home system - on your Router as well as allowing inbound connections on the NAS


This is another alternative

I use a Linux OS (Centos 7) for running as a NAS. Every 30 mins I have a command running on the NAS which gets its IP address (not the local one but the Internet one) and sends an email to my phone with ip address as a text file -- actually these days provided you don't re-boot the NAS the IP address rarely chages between re-boots so if you just take the IP address before you go to work you can probably skip the email address. Now you can logon just like you would with RDP or whatever.

Note also if you use RDP or equivalent you will need to give the NAS a fixed address on your LAN as you will need to send the RDP request to the correct machine.

Another way - especially if going via a corporate type server is to use Tunnelling and Putty

Configuring an SSH tunnel for PuTTY | ARC-TS

cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there @Hoggorm

You first need to ensure that relevant ports are open on your home system - on your Router as well as allowing inbound connections on the NAS

This is what I would assume also - but what are the relevant ports?

Hoggorm said:

This is what I would assume also - but what are the relevant ports?

Hi there @Hoggorm

Do you have some sort of VNC server (Linux equivalent) running on your NAS -- how do you access it from home -- is it via simple file share (SAMBA) from Windows and Android (do you access music as well on your phone).

Does your NAS have a GUI.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Does your NAS have a GUI.

This is a Synology NAS, so it has a GUI called DSM.

Do you have some sort of VNC server (Linux equivalent) running on your NAS

No

how do you access it from home

Several different ways. Either by mapping a network drive to gain access to a specific folder on the NAS, or by cloud service, notestation, file syncing, entering its local IP or my own domain URL.

All these also work as expected from work, or any other remote location except for mapping a network drive.